


the light of our armistice day

by haloud



Category: Octopath Traveler (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 00:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15546015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haloud/pseuds/haloud
Summary: For most of his life Erhardt could not have defined the word absolution.  He avoided the word as a point of pride, pure in his drive for vengeance, like he avoided fire.  But here, now, alive, bathed in heat and sweat and desert wind, what other word is worth knowing?





	the light of our armistice day

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from vienna teng's antebellum

Olberic blows into town and carries the breath of mountain winter in his wake.

A part of Erhardt had expected never to see him again, had expected promises to be broken, had expected his days to spin thin on exchanged letters growing less and less frequent, making plans never to be kept.  But here he is.  In the flesh, as broad as ever, graying at the temples, smiling that eye-crinkling smile with his big hands outstretched.

That _smile._ A younger Erhardt lay awake burning with hatred for that smile that could make him forget when the sun was out and bright.  But now, older, emptier, he lacks words to describe how it makes him feel.

“How do you do, old friend?”  Olberic’s voice booms like there’s still stone around to make an echo. 

“Hale as ever, old friend,” Erhardt replies, in a voice like footsteps in the sand.

\--

Erhardt’s home in Wellspring is humble.  His bed is tucked into one corner, unmade.  A brightly-colored, well-swept rug has pride of place in the center of the floor, a gift from a grateful grandmother soon after the first wave of lizardmen was driven away.  There are pegs by the door for cloak and sword and shield.  Olberic’s home in Cobbleston is no grander, but there must be some difference—a higher ceiling, perhaps, or more windows, more light, because while Olberic is _only a man,_ within the walls of Erhardt’s home he seems to occupy every inch of space all at once.

Olberic begins fussing the moment he sets foot inside, before Erhardt can say a word.  He makes a beeline for the water buckets and takes them for a refill.  He shakes out his boots and traveling clothes outside to avoid shedding sand inside.  The heat must be killing him in that quilted doublet, cravat still tight around his neck.  Little beats of sweat gather on his brow, and Erhardt imagines himself swanning over, a cool cloth in hand, to tend to his overheating skin.  His feet are rooted to the floor, however, back stuck to the wall beside his own front door, hands folded demurely behind his back.

 For a moment, he half expects Olberic to get down on his hands and knees and start scrubbing the floor or something equally ridiculous, but the moment he runs out of obvious chores, he just brushes his hands together, puts them on his hips, then leaves them hanging awkwardly at his sides.

“Perhaps supper is in order?” Erhardt murmurs into the thick air.

A stone’s worth of tension lifts from Olberic’s shoulders at the sound of Erhardt’s voice, and Erhardt doesn’t even try to hold back a smile at the look of utter relief on his face.  Things are awkward.  Of course things are awkward.  The clash of steel has always been the only language they shared, and it’s high time they learned to actually _speak_ to one another.  Ale and food are as good a place as any to begin.

Though cooking was never Erhardt’s strong suit, he, like many soldiers, can manage at least a simple, hearty stew.  With the addition of a few spices he’s developed an affinity for since putting down roots in the Sunlands, Erhardt’s one dish has become something he doesn’t even mind serving to guests.  Not, mind, that guests in need of feeding are common—Wellspring’s people take it on pride that Erhardt never has to serve himself in their homes.  However, he returns their incredible generosity by hosting feasts for the brave men and women of the town who fought by his side to defend their home, even if the food he offers nowhere near approaches the quality of what they could make themselves.

Olberic’s standards, however, remain _perilously_ low, like any lifelong soldier, so Erhardt feels no reservations serving simple food to him.  He wolfs down the stew faster than his tastebuds could hope to keep up with, and Erhardt watches, still smiling.

“This is good,” Olberic says after a swig of ale.  “Heartier by far than the dishwater on tap at most taverns across Orsterra!  Not that I have any room to talk—remember the swill we used to drink in the barracks?  Though I suppose persnickety companions have rubbed off on me.  Perhaps the same can be said of you?”

“Ah—no.  No, no companions for me.  You should tell me of your journeys, however.  I was privy to precious little, at the time.”

“Surely Captain Bane and his men have altered your habits somewhat.  If nothing else, the change in your stew proves that.”

Erhardt taps his fingernail against the glass.  “Really, Olberic, you’ve had a most interesting year.  I’d much rather talk about you.”

“Well, most recently I’ve been corresponding with Cyrus—Professor Albright.  He’s expressed interest in inviting me to speak to his students about ‘the late modern history of Hornburg,’ but I’ve impressed upon him that it would be an utter disaster to put me in charge of speaking to people.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.  I’m sure you would have plenty to say.”  Erhardt can’t help the pained smile/grimace that thins his lips—it’s all he can do not to curl his shoulders at the eagle-sharp gaze with which Olberic scans his reaction.

“We are allowed to talk about it, you know.  In exchanging letters with the professor, I’ve even found it quite cathartic,” he says bluntly, placing his hand palm up in the middle of the table.  “If we never speak of it, Hornburg dies a second death.  That isn’t what I want.  Even if your memories are bitter with grief and anger, it cannot all have been bad. Even if we do not speak on…the end of things, I wish to remember our youth.  Erhardt.”

His name falls from Olberic’s lips like an afterthought.  Like a reminder.  And remember Erhardt does.  Sun against the pounded dirt of the training ground; body burning with exertion, cheeks burning from laughter.  Their names in shy, in reverent whispers, too late at night, when to be awake would have meant punishment drills the next day, until Erhardt was so tired he wouldn’t even dream of fire.

Erhardt slips his hand into Olberic’s.

“No.  It wasn’t all bad.”  Goosebumps rush up and down Erhardt’s arms as Olberic presses his other hand atop their joined palms so gently, like Erhardt is made of porcelain instead of callous and bone.

But can’t Olberic see that’s the worst of it?  There was good in Hornburg, overflowing at every crevice, and Erhardt _still_ faltered not at all, still offered it up for the slaughter, still swung the final sword with his own two hands.  What reparations can be made at this point, what reparations from a heart so black that every time he traces the trajectory of his own life, he still ends up atop that mountain, still winds up the traitor, still cuts his pound of flesh from his second chance at happiness?

What’s the point in talking at all?

When they both stood as titans with the name of Hornburg behind them, the difference in size between them barely registered in Erhardt’s mind.  Call it tunnel vision, call it arrogance, but he always saw himself as looking directly into Olberic’s eyes.  But now?  Erhardt can’t stop staring at all this _reality_.  A little scar bisects Olberic’s bottom lip—old enough to be faint and white but brand new to Erhardt.  Reaching out to touch it would be a mistake.  Time has made him too greedy, and he’s no longer sure where the boundaries are set.  Are they as open as they once were, when the two of them were young and foolish?  Could Erhardt open his mouth and let the request leap out:  don’t stay at the inn tonight, stay here, with me?  Erhardt has felt small—beneath the burning eaves of his childhood home, cheek bruised and swollen from Werner’s displeasure, facing down a hoard of lizardmen—but his sense of scale has never stood as starkly as now, chin-height to his erstwhile rival, and aching to be allowed to be tucked into that space and held close.  Protected.  And a thousand other things he does not deserve.

“It gladdens my heart to hear you say that.”  Olberic’s voice has dropped to a low rumble, and if Erhardt was pressed to his chest it would be more sensation than sound.  Briefly, Erhardt considers not believing him.

For most of his life Erhardt could not have defined the word _absolution._ He avoided the word as a point of pride, pure in his drive for vengeance, like he avoided fire.  But here, now, alive, bathed in heat and sweat and desert wind, what other word is worth knowing? 

Olberic skims his sword-calloused thumb across Erhardt’s smooth jaw, and there are no words at all.

\--

Morning comes once, and then it comes again.  Erhardt wakes with his ripe-wheat hair gone stringy, desert stickiness coating his body, but he’s never been more comfortable.  He can press his sweaty forehead between Olberic’s shoulder blades and breathe in the smell of him, and breathe again, and breathe again, like the drowned man who’s just coughed the last of the brine from his body.  Olberic rolls over and throws an arm around Erhardt’s neck and buries his nose in the top of his head and there, almost buried beneath his most hated enemy, Erhardt basks in the salt.

Blood, sweat, and tears—Erhardt demanded all three from this man, drove him to all three, ground him down until he had nothing but all three.  They should talk.  They should let it be awkward until it isn’t.  Olberic should shout, should duel him to the death, should disappear from his life and move on entirely.  Blood, sweat, and tears—it’s all Erhardt can taste some days, when he most wonders if his third chance is only retribution in the long form for all his sins.

“Good morning,” Olberic says.

“I hope you slept well,” Erhardt manages to reply.

Olberic shifts, moves his arm so he can slide down a few inches and press a gentle kiss to Erhardt’s anxious-fluttering pulse.  “I dreamt of us.”

“Ah.”

Lips curving into a smile against him.  “’Twas a good dream.”

“You are in possession of a very forgiving psyche, then.”

A hand like a bear’s paw slides from his hip to his ribs, rucking Erhardt’s tunic up as it goes.  “Did you know you are more beautiful now then you ever were before?”

“Mm. Flatterer.”

“It’s true.”

And that, Erhardt can believe.  No one could look upon the little lines beginning to crinkle at the corner of Olberic’s eyes and not be inclined to agree.  It’s been ages since Erhardt looked at his own reflection, but if Olberic’s seeing even a fraction of the same sight, then Erhardt is sympathetic to his plight.

Olberic extracts himself with a final kiss to Erhardt’s shoulder and sits up, spine popping as he stretches.  Erhardt takes a moment more to move, preoccupied with watching the indent Olberic has left in his bed, heart full to bursting.

Aelfric, Brand, anyone who’s listening—should he fall to his knees and weep with gratitude for this gift, this grace, this glorious normalcy for he who never thought he’d live to see the next day, let alone his thirty-fifth year?  Or should he merely beg for a moment more of fragile, paranoid joy, before Olberic repays him in kind for all the years of betrayal and mourning? 

For the warrior, war is easy, so Olberic’s forgiveness came at the point of a sword—at Erhardt’s throat, then planted in the hot sand.  Then the war ends, and here they are, in peacetime, piecing things together.  Still learning how to move on, how to move around each other, in the nervous morning to each star-studded night.  Building a new home from what they once thought was ash.

**Author's Note:**

> olberic/erhardt weepypasta over at haloud.tumblr.com


End file.
